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Damil Components laces modular Italian-made alloy hubs into affordable wheels

Damil Components machined 7075 alloy aluminum road bike mountain bike hubs made in Italy
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Italian hub & wheel maker Damil Components introduced a new set of high-performance machined aluminum road & mountain bike hubs promising a modular design that can be adapted to almost any drivetrain on the market. Plus, beyond in-house hub production, Damil also builds their components into affordably priced wheelsets in carbon & alloy working with trusted rim producers.

Damil Components CNC machined 7075 alloy bike hubs

Damil Components was founded back in 2015 out of the contract machining workshop of Andrea Repele in northern Italy. A long time mountain biker with more than two decades of experience CNC machining parts in and out of the cycling industry, he envisioned a new generation of premium quality, precision-made, stiff & smooth rolling Italian bike hubs. Offering hubs to fit pretty much every road and trail application, Damil manufactures every part of their hubs except the bearings in-house near Vicenza in northern Italy, west of Venice.

Damil Italian-made aluminum hubs – tech details

Damil Components machined 7075 alloy aluminum road bike mountain bike hubs made in Italy

No matter if you are looking or DH, XC, gravel, or road hubs, they all share the same construction – machined from 7075 aluminum for light, stiff performance.

Damil Components machined 7075 alloy aluminum road bike mountain bike hubs made in Italy

All hubs use specific thread-in axles for each thru-axle diameter and spacing, and feature internal alloy axle spacers that stretch from bearing-to-bearing & bearing-to-endcap to ensure precise bearing alignment & loading for a long, smooth spinning life. (No tool-free exchangeable endcaps which they say decrease performance & bearing lifespan.) Engagement is with four two-tooth pawls that all engage simultaneously to a 60 tooth ratchet ring for relatively quick, but super secure power transfer.

Damil Components machined 7075 alloy aluminum road bike mountain bike hubs made in Italy

All hubs share the same modular, interchangeable freehub bodies to fit Shimano, Campagnolo & SRAM XD cassettes. A Shimano XTR 12-speed Micro Spline compatible freehub is the most recent introduction, and uses Damil’s own unique modified design to work within the still closed XTR 12sp standard.

A new XDR driver for new road & gravel groupsets is in the final stages of development right now, and will be ready for consumers by the end of March. Damil says they haven’t had any interest yet in a Rotor 1×13 compatible body, but following along their concept of universal fit, they would foresee developing one in the future that would work with their modular hubs. Their overarching idea is that every new hub they produce is designed to offer maximum flexibility with any type of drivetrain on the market, and they will continue to develop new cassette interfaces as the need arises.

Damil Components machined 7075 alloy aluminum road bike mountain bike hubs made in Italy

Their current mountain hubs are available with nicely machined 6-bolt disc mounts, and either traditional hub flanges for J-bend spokes or straight-pull specific hubshells. They are considering the option for centerlock MTB hubs if there is demand. Of course various hub shell width & axle spacings are available, for standard, Boost & DH hubs. A set of Boost straightpull MTB hubs has claimed weight of 438g (155g front, 283g rear.)

Damil Components machined 7075 alloy aluminum road bike mountain bike hubs made in Italy

Rim brake hubs are available in several lacing & drilling combinations as well, with this Campy-ready classic J-bend front and rear hub mixing straight-pull & J-bend being the most common configuration. This set of rim brake quick release road hubs has claimed weight of 362g (98g front, 264g rear.)

Damil Components machined 7075 alloy aluminum road bike mountain bike hubs made in Italy

Their newest option for road are these new straight-pull centerlock disc brake hubs. Fresh off the lathe these prototypes may still see further machining to reduce weight before they are finalized and get laser etched branding. Their 6-bolt road disc predecessors came in at 418g for the pair(135g front, 283g rear) so expect to shed a few more grams from that.

Damil hub options, pricing & availability

Damil Components machined 7075 alloy aluminum road bike mountain bike hubs made in Italy

All of the hubs are available in a range of ten anodized colors: pink, fuscia, red, yellow, orange, gold, green, blue, silver & black. And all of the hubs have very similar retail pricing. Damil says pricing essentially equates directly to machining complexity & the actual amount of aluminum needed. Hubsets range from 320€ to 370€ for the pair, with classic road hubs at the low end of that and wide DH hubs the most expensive end of the spectrum. No difference in pricing for the different freehub bodies or any of the 10 ano colors. Additional freehub bodies sell for 87€ a piece if you plan to change up your drivetrain.

Damil says they try to keep stock of all hubs in every configuration, so they can routinely ship out a hubset when ordered in 1 or 2 working days. Hubs are available through a retailer network, or direct from Damil.

Damil in house complete carbon & alloy wheelsets

Damil Components machined 7075 alloy aluminum road bike mountain bike hubs made in Italy

In addition to manufacturing their own hubsets for pretty much all cycling disciplines, Damil also builds complete wheelsets in their shop. All wheels use Sapim spokes and their 7075 hubs, available in the full range of colors, axle standards & freehubs.

Damil Components machined 7075 alloy aluminum road bike mountain bike hubs made in Italy

Damil laces up their wheels in-house with either tubeless carbon rims from a trusted producer in Taiwan, or with Stan’s alloy tubeless rims for road, gravel, cyclocross, or mountain bike applications. They also even offer alloy road rims made locally for a more completely Italian wheel build. All of the alloy wheelsets retail for 700€, while the carbon wheelsets range in price from 1200-1500€

Damil sells through a growing dealer network throughout Europe. But if you don’t find a retailer near you, they will sell either hubs or complete wheels consumer-direct and ship them to your door.

DamilComponents.com

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Darren Parish
Darren Parish
5 years ago

Fantastic article. As the UK distributor we have been riding Damil for the past 9 months on and off road. Handling and braking are sublime. Weight is in line with other top brands however strength is phenomenal. Been purposely riding bad roads and gravel tracks on the Allroad38’s and I can’t fault them. We have demo wheels available and are building a dealer network. Please feel free to get in touch http://www.komltd.cc

Involuntary Soul
Involuntary Soul
5 years ago

at that price range, why not just get DT 350? it is tried and tested

K-Pop is dangerous to your health
K-Pop is dangerous to your health
5 years ago

New doesn’t mean inferior. If that was the case we wouldn’t have companies like Onyx, Project 321, Aivee, Extralite, etc, etc…. Options are good for the consumer, competition is good for the market. Biz 101. Love to see smaller manufactures like this give the big brands a run for their money. Made in Italy, not Taiwan, adaptable to pretty much every standard, 10 color options, only about $50 more than a DT 350 set… So, why not?

Bob
Bob
5 years ago

why waste the $50? New means no track record. So they need something else that is better than those that have a know track record. All those other brands you mention offer something else that DT Swiss does not like weight or engagement. also, when i think of engineering and manufacturing power houses, Italy does not come to mind. Taiwan however has a good track record of making great stuff, like most of the bike industries products for the last 10-15 years. hearing made in Italy make me thing of a broken down Countach on the side of the road.

Francesco Ceolato
Francesco Ceolato
5 years ago
Reply to  Bob

Hi Bob. There’s not only engagement or weight that affect the quality of the hubs. The big difference of the price is the cost of the raw material. DT use forged alloy. Damil use alloy 7075 (bar extrusion) that is way more expensive. Using that material you have long durability and better mechanical characteristics.

Leonardo Camargos
Leonardo Camargos
5 years ago

Francesco, you are wrong. Forged/machined is stronger than extruded/machined for a part of the same weight and geometry. I can tell The Damil machining process shown in the video above generate a lot of waste. Thats a fact.

Fernando
Fernando
5 years ago

Leonardo. Forged aluminium billets have less mechanical features than solid 7075 T6 bars once machined to the desired designs. I did some hub fabrication myself and that is precisely the difference between top notch 240’s shells and the cheaper 350’s with chunkier wall thickness and less extreme machining.

Well done Damil. I admire to enter a market where it has a lot of competitor already. Is the hub axle made of steel??? Size of bearings? I love the idea of not having axle shoulders and bearing spacer like in most freehubs.

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